


Lost and Found

by IronScript



Series: Voltron Drabble Collection [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: BAMF Lance (Voltron), Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Gen, Lance (Voltron) Has ADHD, Lance is a smart cookie, Lance is super considerate, Lance saved her don't worry, M/M, Pining Lance (Voltron), Post Season 7, Spoilers, brief mentions of attempted non-con, diplomat lance, does include some hopefully realistic angst, feel free to ignore if it's not your cup of tea, his family is so proud of him, inner musings, pre-relationship klance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 15:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15776976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IronScript/pseuds/IronScript
Summary: Luis McClain reflects on the man Lance has become, and realized that despite their family's worries, he is exactly where he's meant to be.





	Lost and Found

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: As always, I'm in no way affiliated with Voltron.
> 
> There are a few headcanons included in here, hope you guys don't mind. :P
> 
> Enjoy! <3
> 
> Also, feel free to check out [My Store](https://www.etsy.com/shop/RayvnashesButtons)!

Lance had always been meant for more than Veradero (and later Florida), the McClain family had come to realize as he’d grown older.

They’d never quite managed to pinpoint how, though.

He had been doing gymnastics since he was four, and back at their home in Veradero (if it hadn’t been destroyed in the invasion), you’d have been able to find dozens of trophies, medals, and certificates given as proof of Lance’s skill.

Then there had been his love of swimming. Lance had, from the moment their parents felt comfortable removing his floaties, outstripped the rest of them by far, able to get from one side of a pool to the next before you could so much as blink, or at least that’s what it had felt like. He was able to hold his breath for so long that their papa had once jumped fully-clothed into the pool to retrieve Lance, who had just been hanging out at the bottom and was quite bewildered by everyone’s panic when they breached the surface.

By the time Lance was ten, the rest of the family had seriously started wondering if they had a future Olympian on their hands (though they disagreed which sport he’d go for), but Lance himself had never shown anything more than vague interest in the Olympics when they came on, despite his sometimes overly competitive nature.

But then in sixth grade his class took a field trip to a planetarium, and Lance’s heart was immediately won over, and shortly afterwards he started looking into the Galaxy Garrison, located in Arizona. By then the family had moved to Florida, but suddenly their youngest was dreaming of a school half-way across the country.

They hadn’t thought that his fascination would last long.

Singing, dancing, guitar, all skills that Lance had learned over the years, ones which his family thought he had the potential to go far in but he himself saw as just fun hobbies, but something about the mystery of the stars caught his attention.

It was hardly a secret that Lance had a hell of a brain under that meticulously well-kept hair of his.

Sure, he had to deal with his ADHD, which made it more difficult for him to focus on his schoolwork (and now that he thought about it, Luis wondered if that had something to do with his brother’s dismissiveness about making a career out of his ‘hobbies’). It wasn’t out of the ordinary for the siblings to have problems keeping up at school due to English being their second language, either, so Lance’s grades sometimes reflected that, though obviously his family understood.

But then he started delving into his studies with a never before seen frenzy, quickly becoming the most fluent of his siblings in English, though Veronica, who shared Lance’s competitive nature, was quick to catch up.

He asked his teachers for permission to record their lectures to make up for his slow writing speed, since those teachers also tended to check the students’ notes to ensure they were paying attention, and therefore required for them to be written in English, which caused a delay as Lance had to translate as he went and consequently missed a lot.

In math and science he started working months ahead whenever possible, and eventually never did more than occasionally take a few minutes before a test to glance through the notes he’d write out for himself during his reading ahead, though his grades never dipped below a high A.

He would listen to audiobooks of his school-assigned reading or sometimes his teachers’ lectures whenever he exercised (they had all pitched in for Christmas one year to buy him a pair of wireless, waterproof earbuds, which were in almost constant use while he swam), which did better to keep his attention than trying to keep his eyes glued to a page of a book.

By the end of the year, Lance had gone from a good student to a great one, and it didn’t go unnoticed.

“If I want to reach the stars, I have to be smart enough to get into the school that can help me get there.” He said with a determined look in his eyes when asked why he was suddenly taking his schooling so much more seriously.

And he had.

Sure, he hadn’t made fighter pilot, but getting accepted into the most prestigious space exploration academy in the world was a massive accomplishment in and of itself, and his entire family was so, so proud of him.

When he got his acceptance letter Lisa, Luis' wife, had gone on one of those websites where you could buy a star and name it, and presented it to him as a congratulations gift.

Though he would never say as much to his wife, Luis had always thought that that kind of thing was silly, like ‘adopting an animal at the zoo’ or ‘adopting a stretch of highway’ like you could do in America. Nonsensical. A money-making scheme.

And maybe it was. Maybe he’d never understand why someone would want to symbolically own part of a road, but he supposed a star was cooler, anyway.

Because when Luis had seen the tears in his brother’s eyes, he’d realized that he’d missed the point.

Because while they were all so very proud of Lance, he hadn’t ended up where he wanted to be, and it was hurting him.

Their parents felt guilty about the whole thing once they’d realized how much it bothered him. If they had had the money to send him off to the preparation camps the Garrison held, or if they had enrolled him in a wealthier school that brought in specialized equipment to practice on, would things have been different?

Maybe, maybe not.

But Lance had quickly come to realize that the look in his parents’ eyes weren’t caused solely by his leaving for a boarding school, and since he himself had the tendency of feeling guilty for things that weren’t his fault, he correctly guessed what was wrong.

And so he suppressed his disappointment, utilizing the Garrison’s resources to connect with Hunk Garrett, who had been assigned as his roommate, and spoke instead of how excited he was to be able to meet his new friend in person, how he would charm the pants off of his new classmates and teachers (figuratively, he was quick to assure their parents as his siblings laughed in the background), how he hoped that the cafeteria would serve garlic knots but that they’d probably taste bad even if they did, so maybe it would be better if—

It wasn’t until after he’d left for his first year that Luis realized that Lance had done all of that intentionally, because Lance was loud and excitable and extroverted, but he’d redirected his focus to other topics so gradually that it came off as completely natural.

It wasn’t until Lance called them a year later to let them know that he’d been bumped up to fighter class, shoulders less tense than they had been in months, that the rest of the family caught onto the fact that he had still been bothered by his initial placement.

Luis never would have thought that his brother could be so subtle, when he wanted to be.

Well, he’d thought he was subtle until his brother started ranting about Keith Kogane, but then maybe his brother was too oblivious to realize that he had a crush on the kid.

But then the call came, and suddenly Luis could care less about his brother being a bisexual disaster, because now he was more concerned with finding out if he was  _okay_.

* * *

 

Years later, once they had all reunited, Luis couldn’t help but be in awe of his younger brother.

Granted, there were a lot of reasons for that, and basically everyone who had witnessed any part of the final battle with Sendak had a great respect for the Paladins of Voltron, current and former, when you included Captain Shirogane.

(Which everyone did.)

But it was a bit different, Luis thought, when it wasn’t just some face you recognized from the news (and later the video messages the elder Holts had illegally released), but someone who you had known since they were born, someone whose kicks you had felt when your mama was pregnant with them.

Lance had grown up so much since they had last seen him, not so much physically since they’d apparently been sucked into some weird portal and…what, kept in stasis for three years? Hell if he understood how that happened. Lance had been born about six year after Luis, but Lance’s body hadn’t technically aged past eighteen or so, which made his siblings feel even older than they actually were.

It was disconcerting, to say the least.

But physical age aside, Lance seemed to be simultaneously more comfortable with himself than they’d ever seen him, and also less assured than they were used to.

Leave it to Lance to be a contradiction in and of himself.

He had become a remarkable sharpshooter over the years, enough for Veronica to pass on that Kinkade, who she’d mentioned was particularly stoic and silent, had noticed his skill and was impressed enough to initiate a short conversation with Lance about their shared talent.

The way Lance carried his bayard (red like the lion he flew, and _man_ did it kind of bother their mama that his armor clashed) left no doubt that he was confident in his ability to use it, and nothing they had seen disproved that notion.

There was also the fact that sometimes he seemed more comfortable conversing with the aliens that had converged on Earth to help with their efforts to reclaim their planet than he did with other humans, his fellow paladins and family aside.

It made sense, to a degree.

Earth hadn’t known about the war until just a year ago, while Lance had been fighting for his life (fighting for the good of the universe) on the forefront, saving and liberating people and planets. He’d seen Lance hold one-sided conversations with a seashell, so it was hardly unusual for him to be able to converse so easily with other sentient beings regardless of how different they were from him.

In fact, Lance seemed to be the most sought-after out of all the Paladins, with the exception of princess Allura, of course.

There were a few exceptions, of course: the Galran Blade members tended to approach Keith, since he’d apparently been one of them. The Olkarion race clearly preferred Pidge, and the Balmeran people, so used to hiding in the shadows, preferred to speak to Hunk through Shay. Shiro was also fairly popular, as the former Black Paladin and new Captain of the Atlas, but in the end it was still Lance that most aliens approached.

Maybe it was because Lance was so accepting of people different than him, always so curious about other cultures and ways of life than the one he lived. He’d been like that since he learned to talk, always making friends with people everywhere he went, young or old, nervous, kind, cynical, sad, lonely—

All Lance ever seemed to need was a single moment—

A phrase to a bitter old man whose family had abandoned him.

Restraining an asshole who had cornered a young woman in an alley Lance walked passed on his way home. Averted eyes and an offered jacket to preserve her dignity after her shirt was more or less ripped off, waiting with her (a respectful distance away) until the cops showed up to haul the man away.

_(Standing up for someone being mocked for his weight, talking them through the anxiety attack they had afterwards and becoming the best, most loyal and accepting friend the other had ever had.)_

_(Opening up about his yearning for home and listening to the other’s own painful memories of the people he had lost. A single instinctive action of jumping on top of someone to try and protect them from a bomb.)_

_(“We are a good team.”)_

A single moment for Lance to break through your walls.

And the thing about Lance was that once you accepted him into your life, even unintentionally, you never really wanted him to leave.

Luis didn't want his brother to leave, either. 

But maybe, just maybe, he could learn to let him go for a while, as long as he came back.

Because as much as their family needed him, the universe needed him more. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys like it! :D
> 
> Feel free to leave a comment or even let me know if you having any ideas you'd like me to consider writing, though be warned my one-shots don't usually get past 5K words, and I tend to put multi-chapter fics on temporary to long-term hiatuses as I switch my focus between fandoms.
> 
> As you can probably tell I'm a Klance shipper so I'd prefer to write that, but I've got some other stories saved with other Lance pairings, so depending on what it is...I don't intend to write smut, though. I don't mind reading it (heck, I've edited a few for a friend, I really don't care), but I myself am asexual, or at least demisexual, so.


End file.
